


Where I First Saw You

by mutualdiscussions



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: M/M, and canon if you squint, this is a lot of fluff
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-11-15
Updated: 2013-11-15
Packaged: 2018-01-01 11:27:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,420
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1044282
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mutualdiscussions/pseuds/mutualdiscussions
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Louis meets Harry in the toilets.  Once or twice.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Where I First Saw You

**Author's Note:**

> I've had this saved to my hard drive for months and months and I wouldn't have posted it if it weren't for [Kate](http://www.soleilouis.tumblr.com) holding my hand and helping me rewrite the entire (tiny) thing.
> 
> I'm at [mutualdiscussions](http://www.mutualdiscussions.tumblr.com) on tumblr if you want to say nice things!

Louis is 17 and he’s surrounded by family and presents and cake and laughter.  He’s opened sweaters and tins of tea and hastily shoved what is most certainly a bottle of vodka, courtesy of Stan, out of the peering eyes of his mother.  She brings a cake from the kitchen and sets it in front of him, and after a terribly off-key verse of “Happy Birthday” he’s blowing out the candles and wishing for something life changing to happen this year.  His mum pulls an envelope from her pocket and it’s going to be tickets to Paris for him and Stan and they’re going to learn French and meet people who are French and snog people who are French and he’s going to be the most cultured person in the world.

 

He’s close; they are tickets for him and Stan, but they’re tickets to The Script concert in Manchester.  He makes grabby hands at them, but his mum holds them just outside his reach.

 

“You do realize this means I’m allowing you and Stan to go to Manchester unattended, correct?” his mum asks with her eyes narrowed.

 

Louis feels like this is a test and he feels like he might fail.

 

“Yes,” he says slowly, eyes darting between his mother and Stan. “We’ll be in Manchester. Alone?” he asks, wondering if his granddad is going to be asked to come along and supervise.  He’d look smashing in a band tee and some skinny jeans.

 

“I am bestowing a great deal of trust in you Louis William Tomlinson, and am I correct in assuming that you won’t do anything to break that trust?” she asks sternly, her eyes narrowing further.

 

The tension drops from Louis’s shoulders and he lets out a small chuckle.  “Oh is that all?  Mum, I scaled the house completely starkers while you were out of town once and sang ’God Save the Queen’ to the neighbor girls.  If that hasn’t broken your trust, nothing we do in Manchester will.”

 

He gives her a winning smile and a wink, which she does not return.

 

The tickets stay pinned to the corkboard on his door, right next to a countdown calendar, and he touches them whenever he leaves the room.  A good luck sort of thing, he supposes; he did wish for something life changing this year.

 

•••

 

It’s finally February 8th and there are no more days to cross off and he and Stan are in his bedroom, about to engage what in what could be the most intense battle of rock, paper, scissors the world has ever seen.  Winner gets to drink to their heart’s content that night, while loser is stuck as the sober driver from the concert.  Louis shoots rock and Stan shoots scissors and Louis lets out a victory cry that probably alarms the neighbors.

 

“Fuck off, best two out of three, yeah?” Stan asks desperately, but Louis just shakes his head and grins.

 

“Nah, Stanley.  We left it up to fate, and fate has spoken,” Louis replies with a wise and mystical air, “and fate wants me to get completely pissed tonight.”

 

He tosses the car keys into Stan’s lap and claps his hands together.

 

“C’mon, the sooner we leave the sooner I can try out this shitty fake,” says Louis, “and for Christ’s sake, can you stop _pouting_ already?  Fuck, you’re killing my buzz already.”

 

•••

 

Inside the venue, Louis is trying desperately to make his fake ID believable.  He bought it off a kid in year 12, and it states that Louis is 23.

 

“Mate, the ID is real, I promise.”

 

The man handing out wristbands looks Louis up and down.

 

“Kid, you’re not--” he squints at the ID in his hand, “a 23 year old named Armando Velazquez.  Jesus Christ, are you guys even trying anymore?” he grumbles, handing the plastic card back to Louis.

 

“Uh, si?” Louis tries with a sheepish grin.

 

Wristband Guy rolls his eyes and slips a band around his wrist.  He saunters to the bar with his head held high and his wrist held higher.  His fake worked and he thinks to himself that this night can’t get any better. Louis orders two beers and gets a suspicious glance from the bartender.  He shows her his wristband, and she just smiles and shakes her head, handing them over.  He downs half of a bottle in one pull.  Stan’s eyeing the spare in Louis’s left hand with a look of yearning.  Louis promptly swallows the rest, belches loudly into Stan’s face, and wraps his lips around the second bottle.

 

He’s into his third by the time The Script comes onstage, and he’s feeling pleasant and warm at this point.  There’s a buzz in the air and under his skin and he has that moment of weightlessness, surrounded by people who are all feeling and loving the same thing at the same time.  He doesn’t hear the screams so much as he feels them, feels them rushing through his blood and twisting around his bones and filling up his lungs until he can’t help but scream himself.

 

Most of the concert is spent getting drinks or yelling lyrics into Stan’s face, though it’s hard to make lyrics like “ _knowing things would never be the same with your empty heart and mine full of pain_ ” upbeat and cheery.  All of these songs are about falling in love and then watching it all crumble.  Louis is 17 and he’s never been in love, thinks teenage love is something reserved for sappy films and novels that his sisters all adore. Still, there’s electricity in the air and Louis can feel something about this night, something’s going to happen and something is going to change for him, and he didn’t get his trip to Paris but this night is going to bring something crazy that’s going to alter the course of his life forever and he feels his pulse match the bass and--

 

And then it’s over.  The Script leaves the stage and the house lights flick on and Louis has the strange sensation of taking a step where there wasn’t one.  It’s abrupt and he feels like he’s been struck across the face.  He’s drunk and confused and turns to Stan.

 

“The concert can’t be over, the thing, the thing hasn’t happened,” Louis slurs.

 

Stan gives him an incredulous look.  “The thing?  The thing was the concert, you idiot.  Now it’s over, so how about we get you home to sleep this off?”  He reaches to tug Louis’s sleeve, but Louis stumbles from his grasp.

 

“The thing!” Louis gasps, “the thing, because no Paris snogging and wishes and—“

 

He’s cut off by a stunned laugh from Stan.  “Look, you’re fucking pissed right now and I don’t know what the hell you’re going on about.  Go to the loo and splash some water on your face, yeah?” Stan points him in the direction of the washroom and pats his arm encouragingly.  “And buy a fucking water while you’re at it!”

 

•••

 

Louis buys the water and drinks the whole thing in one go and realizes he really has to piss, like, NOW.  The water helped minutely; Louis doesn’t feel quite so fuzzy anymore.  The realization that this concert has come and gone and the earth is still spinning hits him in those shitty toilets.  He’s standing at a urinal and having an existential crisis because he really thought something was going to happen tonight.  He really thought something fantastical and enchanting would happen to him and he’s feeling like a goddamn idiot and why did he think anything special would happen, really?

 

His drunken self-loathing is interrupted by a none-too-gentle shoulder bump as a similarly inebriated mess of curls joins him at the urinal.  Louis narrowly avoids pissing all over himself, and gives the boy a withering glare. The boy glances up at Louis and Louis sucks in a breath and _wow okay that’s a fucking dimple right there_ and the boy shrugs his shoulders in a vaguely apologetic way.

 

“Oops!”

 

Louis wrenches his eyes up from this giant crater in this boy’s cheek and is assaulted by the greenest goddamn eyes he has ever seen.  He should’ve stuck with the dimple.

 

It occurs to Louis that at least 15 seconds and possibly a few millennia have passed and he’s done nothing but gape and nearly piss on this boy.  Delightful.

 

“Hi,” and Louis didn’t know a one syllable word could sound so nervous.   _What an opener Tomlinson_ , he thinks bitterly to himself.

 

Dimples is just grinning wildly up at Louis and seems completely unfazed by eye contact over a urinal.  Louis is starting to wonder if murderers are allowed to have dimples.

 

“Y’ve still got your dick out, did you know?” Dimples says charmingly, the words made even more ridiculous by his prim accent.  Louis flushes and tucks himself into his jeans while Dimples barks out a laugh.  Louis realizes that he stood with his hand on his dick and stared at this stranger, who simultaneously had his hand on his own dick.  Mutual staring and dick touching and it dawns on him that he doesn’t even know Dimples’ name.

 

“ ‘s your name?” is Louis’s innovative fix.

 

Dimples’ dimples grow impossibly deeper.  “I’m Harry. I’d shake your hand but--” and Harry looks down, tucks himself in, “that’s better.”  Harry actually extends his dick hand to Louis, and Louis is too fazed to do anything but accept.  Louis is thinking about his hand touching Harry’s dick hand and Louis is shit at maths but he’s pretty sure there’s some theorem or property that means he’s now touched Harry’s dick.

 

Louis glances up from their still-shaking hands and Harry’s eyes are twinkling in a delighted sort of way.   _Probably not a murderer, then, or maybe a super murderer_ he thinks vaguely, and has the basic sense to drop his hand.  It feels cold and he has to fight the itch to take Harry’s hand in his once more.

 

“God, I haven’t even told you my fucking name, have I?  I don’t even know what’s wrong with me, ‘m usually not like this I swear, I‘ve just had a lot to drink and like, dimples, y’know?  Course you know, on your face aren’t they?  Little fucking vortexes they are, and--” Louis stops himself, takes a long and shuddering breath, and exhales slowly.  “’m Louis.”

 

“Louis,” Harry repeats slowly, as if he’s savoring the taste of the name on his lips.  “Fits you,” he says simply, a smile exaggerating his rounded cheeks.  Louis gets an urge to poke his finger into his dimple and touch and probably never stop touching and he doesn’t even know this boy and “I should probably go,” he blurts out.

 

“Oh,” and Harry’s mouth is drawn into a small pout for a moment, then he sucks his bottom lip in and bites, and yeah, Louis really needs to fucking go.

 

“I’ll see you around, Dimples,” Louis says with a smile, and leaves this boy in the bathroom and wonders what the hell just happened.  He spots Stan across the now-empty venue and nearly reaches him before panic strikes and he realizes he didn’t even get Harry’s number.  He turns on the spot, ignoring Stan’s protests, and sprints back into the bathroom to find this boy who could maybe be the thing he was wishing for.

 

It’s empty.

 

•••

 

Louis wakes the next morning with a pounding headache and promptly rushes to the bathroom across the hall to throw up.  With his face pressed against the cool tiles, he remembers Dimples and remembers that he doesn’t have his phone number, but this is the 21st century, goddammit, and Louis will find this boy because that’s what the internet is for.

 

He pulls up Facebook on his laptop and realizes he knows nothing about this boy but a first name and an affinity for dick holding.   _And that posh little accent_ , Louis amends, and perhaps he will be able to find Harry after all.  Louis starts searching through school networks around Chester and Northwich, confident that he’ll be able to find this mystical Harry.

 

Seven hours later, Louis has severely bloodshot eyes and no Harry.  He closes his laptop with a world-weary sigh.  Fate, he decides, can only go so far.  He tucks his laptop away, and with it, his hope of finding Harry.

 

•••

 

The world keeps spinning, somehow.  It’s just over year later and Louis is standing in a massive queue with his mum and his girlfriend and trying to breathe.  He’s been craving something life changing and this, auditioning for the X Factor, could finally be it.  He’s always loved singing, but now, being one boy in a sea of thousands is making him feel tiny and insignificant.  It’s not that he doesn’t believe in himself, exactly, it’s just that he’s realistic.  Things like this don’t happen to nobodies from Doncaster.  He’s peering around the divide and trying to figure out if he could run away without anyone noticing and then he hears it.

 

The voice is a little deeper this time, but that stupid posh accent sounds exactly like the boy from the bathroom.  Louis’s neck turns and he’s rubbing at the crick but craning, trying to find where the voice is coming from so he can know for sure that it’s him, even though that’s completely impossible and then he sees it.  He sees the curls piled on top of that head and hears that barking laugh and if he could just crane his neck a bit further he’d be able to see the eyes, because he can’t mistake the eyes and—

 

“Louis Tomlinson?” a woman’s authoritative tone brings him back to earth.  “Louis Tomlinson?” she repeats again, and Louis forgets about the boy in the line and is rushed off to face his fate.

 

He stands to the side of the stage and takes slow and calming breaths.  They aren’t helping.  He’s going to go onstage and he’s going to open his mouth and a frog croak is going to come out and he’s going to fuck up his life and his future and he’s going to live with his mum for the rest of his life.  Someone pushes him onstage and he’s looking into too-bright lights and smiling and he opens his mouth and it’s all a blur and then yes yes yes he’s done it and he’s through.  He rushes offstage into a thousand warm embraces and wonders, through the buzz and the tears, if the boy who might be Harry has gotten through as well.

 

•••

 

Louis didn’t even think about what comes after the yeses, and what comes after is boot camp and even more nerves.  Now his competition is the very best singers in all of the UK.   All the doubts he had before getting through have only been intensified because what if they made a mistake?  What if he goes up onstage surrounded by people who have nicer voices and are better looking and they realize they didn’t actually mean to let Louis through?  What if, on national television, Simon Cowell tells him he’s got a shit voice and they’ve made a terrible mistake and sends him off?  How fucked is that going to be?  He’ll have to pack up and go home and explain to everyone that he’s shit and wasn’t even supposed to make it and he’s going to work at Tesco until he dies.  The corridor he’s standing in suddenly feels impossibly hot and Louis thinks he might throw up.

 

He ducks inside a washroom and leans against the sinks and reminds himself to breathe, just breathe, it’ll all be over soon.  He’ll go back to his normal life and his normal school and this will all be a story that he tells one day, but only if he can breathe first.  He runs the water and splashes a bit on his face, willing himself to just _calm the fuck down_.  He checks himself in the mirror, nods once, and moves to the door to get back and accept his fate.  He reaches for the handle and the door swings sharply inward and Louis flings himself backward to avoid a black eye.

 

It’s Harry.  His eyes are made greener by the fact that he’s clearly been crying, but it’s the same boy he met in the bathroom a year ago.

 

Harry sniffs and wipes at his face and croaks out a watery “oops?” and keeps his gaze firmly on the tiles.  The only thing keeping Louis from laughing out loud at the ridiculousness of this boy is the fact that he’s clearly distraught.

 

“Hi,” Louis says softly, and he’s stuck with the sudden paralyzing thought that Harry probably doesn’t even recognize him.  He’s standing in a bathroom with a boy he stalked for seven hours and thought about for a lot more than seven hours and the boy doesn’t have a damn clue who he is.  He needs to get out of this bathroom and he needs to get out now.  He tries to duck around Harry to the door but Harry flings himself at him and lets out a watery laugh.  Louis fights the urge to thread his fingers in those curls and tries to remember how to breathe.

 

Harry pulls himself back, keeping his hands looped around Louis’s wrists.  “Louis, oh my god Louis, you’re here!  I tried to find you outside that venue but--” and here Harry cuts himself off with a big, choking sob and Louis pulls him back against his chest.

 

“Whoa slow down, Curly, what’s’matter?  Deep breaths, yeah?” Louis guides their bodies down until they’re sitting, ignoring the fact that they’re on the floor of a public restroom and he’s probably going to have to burn these trousers.

 

“ s’nothing,” Harry sniffs, and Louis raises an eyebrow and shoots Harry a withering look.  “I mean, it’s just…” Harry trails off and god does this kid talk at a glacial pace.  It’s a good thing he’s cute.

 

Louis tries to be patient, he really does.  But he’s pretty sure that left to his own devices, Harry would speak approximately 3 words per minute.

 

“It’s just?” Louis prompts after a few moments of silence.

 

“ s’just, there are a lot of really good singers here y’know?  And like.  I’m just me.  I’m the youngest person here and I just,” and his voice goes so quiet that Louis has to lean in to hear the next bit, “I just worry that I’m not good enough?  Or special enough?  To get through again?”

 

Louis leaps to his feet at this, extends a hand to Harry, and pulls him up alongside himself.  Harry looks a bit startled, to say the least.  He puts his hands on Harry’s shoulders and sighs.

 

“d’you really not have any idea how special you are, Curly?  Look at you,” he says.  “You’ve got bags of charm, I’m sure your voice is spectacular, and these,” he smirks, tugging on an errant curl above Harry’s ear, “these are going to have the girls going mad for you.”

 

Harry gives him a wobbly smile.  “You really think so?” he breathes, and dammit if Louis isn’t sucked in by that dimple again.

 

“I know so.  In fact,” Louis rifles through his wallet and pulls out a Pizza Hut receipt. “I’d like your autograph right now.  Y’know, so I can tell people I met the famous Harry…” he trails off here, raising his eyebrows like a question.

 

“Styles,” he supplies, “and I’ve got a pen. If you really mean it?”

 

“You’re joking.  Your name is Harry Styles and you’re already carrying around pens?” Louis offers a small smile to let him know he’s teasing.  “You’re meant to be famous mate.  M’not kidding.  Wouldn’t even worry if I were you.  Hell, you’ll probably win this whole damn thing, if I’m being honest.”

 

There’s a genuine smile on Harry’s lips now, his dimples truly offensive.  He signs his name in plain cursive, and, after a quick glance to Louis, adds his number underneath.  He hands it back to Louis, scratching the back of his neck nervously.

 

Louis folds the receipt and pockets it, waggling his eyebrows down at Harry.  “A phone number already? Cheeky, you’re not famous quite yet.”  Harry looks bemused, and Louis can’t help but laugh.  “C’mon kid, let’s find a catering cart or something,” and he and Harry leave the bathroom with their arms slung round each other.

 

 

Louis hopes that now that he’s found him, fate will let him keep Harry.

**Author's Note:**

> Oops?


End file.
